MORE ON: voters

Jonathan Eldridge wanted to vote for president. The Santa Rosa resident had registered to vote – or so he thought – at a Department of Motor Vehicles office several months ago. But when he called the Sonoma County registrar last week to find out why he hadn’t... + read more

UPDATE, Sept. 26, 2012: The Golden State Voter Participation Project gave additional perspective. Republican voter registration in California is in a long downward spiral. Still, in 31 of the state’s 58 counties, the GOP still holds sway. Then there’s Riverside County,... + read more

In the past 10 years, four California cities have embraced ranked-choice voting, the system of computerized runoff elections that boosters say streamlines and reforms local politics. Almost as soon as the new systems were in place, critics began trying to roll ranked-choice voting back. ... + read more

SACRAMENTO – More than 17 million Californians took the time to register to vote. About 726,000 of them stopped long enough to sign a petition putting Proposition 28 on tomorrow's ballot. But in a signal of just how insular the state's political process has become, not a single... + read more

The latest technology snafus to hit Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office have added to growing frustration from registrars and watchdog groups, who say Bowen has been unresponsive to their concerns. The server crash that brought down California’s campaign finance disclosure... + read more

First 5 commissions in four counties have filed legal challenges to legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown that shifts $1 billion from early childhood development programs to state health services – and more commissions are considering follow suit. Although Brown originally sought... + read more

Californians are mailing it in. Results from the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election – which had the highest turnout since 1994 – show that ballots cast by mail made up 48 percent of total votes. During the 2006 gubernatorial election, only 41.6 percent of voters cast ballots by mail.... + read more

Despite feeling generally enthusiastic about the November election, voters for the first time in one major California survey said they don't trust their fellow voters to make the right decisions. According to a survey released yesterday by the Public Policy Institute of California, less... + read more

The U.S. Department of Justice will be sending sending poll watchers to Alameda and Riverside counties today to ensure California's long-awaited Election Day goes smoothly – a routine move in a decidedly not-routine election year already replete with allegations of voter fraud. Voter... + read more

To proponents, ranked-choice voting is the wave of the future in local elections in California. Next week it’s going to come crashing down on voters in Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro, adding new elements of complexity to a ballot that’s already long and involved. Ranked-... + read more

During the past two decades, California’s voter rolls have grown by 3.7 million men and women – more than the population of 23 states. Nine out of ten of those voters have come from increases in the state’s ethnic voter population. Figuring out what Californians are thinking... + read more